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xmlsec and libxmlsec for Debian
-------------------------------

The upstream documentation is included with the libxmlsec1-dev package and
located at /usr/share/doc/libxmlsec1-dev.

When developing with the xmlsec library, you have a choice of openssl,
gnutls, or nss crypto engines.  By using "pkg-config xmlsec1-<engine>" or
"xmlsec1-config --crypto=<engine>", you can get the necessary compiler
command-line switches for enabling a certain engine.

If you want to license your application that uses the xmlsec library under
the GNU GPL, or want your library that uses the xmlsec library to be GPL-
compatible, I suggest using the gnutls engine.  Use of the nss crypto engine
may also be compatible with the GPL, but see bugs #207024 and #207026.
Regarding openssl, there is a bit of controversy about whether it can be
considered part of the OS and therefore make use of a loophole in the GPL.
(See the xmlsec FAQ in the documentation.)  More specifically, debian-legal
takes a hard line and does not allow GPL'd packages that link to openssl to
exist in main.  In the future, support for PGP key types may be added, which
would become another reason to go with the gnutls engine.

Note that the library has a dynamic crypto engine loading feature, but I
have not yet enabled it.

Note that a number of the examples included with the -dev package will
not compile successfully under the gnutls engine (due to lack of features
compared to openssl), and will fail under both the gnutls and nss engines
(due to lack of pem file support, etc.).

Upstream has promised that they will increment the number in the library name
(for example, xmlsec1 -> xmlsec2) whenever a binary incompatibility is
introduced, and that it will always match the soname number.  For this
reason I chose to omit the soname number from package names.

-- John V. Belmonte <jbelmonte@debian.org>

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